Tuesday Teaser 4/28/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan

I’m slowly recovering from surgery. Too slowly! Seriously, I thought I’d be completely well by now, but I still experience enough pain to need to take a Percocet before bed. During the day I just take Tylenol, since I really can’t be taking strong pain pills while working the day job. I suppose I should try to take it easy and not expect to be 100% when it hasn’t even been two weeks yet. I guess I’m just impatient.  🙂

It’s been a while since we visited this story, isn’t it?  Over the weekend I decided it was time to get back to it, and played with the idea for the next scene. I started to write it tonight. I didn’t get very far, though. I’m giving you the page I wrote, and at the bottom is a link to the story so far so you can read it straight through if you want. Please remember none of this has been proof read yet, so there are a ton of boo-boos. Please disregard them 🙂

Chapter Four

Dan Stensrud shifted his grip on the shovel he was using as a lever to pry the boulder out of the stream. Tami was right. If any more debris collected around the boulder the stream that watered this pasture would be completely dammed. The rock had to go. He nodded to his son. “On three. One.T…”

The clang of the ranch house bell, muffled by distance, kicked his heart into overdrive. Two clangs, a pause, and two clangs. That meant everyone was summoned back to the ranch immediately. Tami wouldn’t ring the bell without good reason. He released the shovel and ran for his horse. His son was two steps ahead of him. The boy hadn’t learned yet to hide his feelings; fear was plain on his face as he threw himself into the saddle. At twenty-one, Parker wasn’t a boy. Tracker had to remind himself that all his children were adults now, even his little girl. He drove his horse into a gallop.

Tami was on the porch, arms folded tight around herself. Their older son, Taylor, along with his cousins Colby, Matt, and Red Horn, ran in their wolf forms from around the back of the house. Tracker slid off his horse before it stopped.

Not being the clingy sort, his mate didn’t throw herself at him, but he could smell her worry. “Tracker. Olivia’s horse came in a few minutes ago. Olivia didn’t.”

For one second Tracker stopped breathing. During that single moment, Taylor, Colby and Red Horn shifted to human.

“Don’t worry, Aunt Tami.” Colby’s face was almost identical to his father Taye’s at age twenty-four, down to the dimple which wasn’t in evidence right now. “She’s fine. I bet she got thrown and she’s walking back right now.”

Taye’s son was doing what the Clan always did to sooth a worried mother. Tracker didn’t bother to tell Colby that Tami didn’t need empty words to comfort her. His mate could take anything life dished out. “Where’s the horse?”

Tami pointed toward the barn. “The rifle’s still on the saddle. So is her canteen.”

It took Tracker only a minute to thoroughly sniff the horse. The sweat of terror lingered on the animal’s back and neck, raising sweat on his own back and neck. He jerked his head at his kin.

“Colby and Taylor, let your wolves out. Matt and Red Horn, stay at the house in case Olivia comes back. Tami and Parker, saddle up.”

Red Horn fidgeted. “Don’t you think Aunt Tami should stay here?”

Tracker fixed a stern eye on his cousin Stag’s boy. “She’s coming with us.”

As Parker and Tami hurried to saddle horses and fill canteens, Tracker suppressed a smile when Matt cuffed his little cousin’s head. “You oughta know better than to try to keep a momma from her one ewe lamb.”

But the urge to smile died when Tracker stripped out of his clothes to let his wolf out. His one ewe lamb was missing, and that was no reason for smiling.

Daughter of the Wolf Clan